[WIP] The Wizard of Schley
Royal Scribe
🖼️ 372 images Mapmaker
I've been using DD3 symbols for interior furnishings lately because they are a better fit as a supplement to dungeon styles like Creepy Crypts. But I just had to play with Mike Schley's latest symbols (especially the astrolabe!), including some like the cliff symbols as well as the Stairs and Steps from last year's annual. I'm calling it this tower the Wizard of Schley...
(However, I just realized that although I have interior stairs going down, I haven't designed the basement yet. I will do that tomorrow.)
From Above
On the roof of his tower, the wizard paint the landscape by day and study the stars at night. He's also planted a little herb garden up here. The stairs to reach the roof are in the western tower; the southeastern tower is a chimney.
First Floor
This floor is principally used to receive guests, especially adventurers seeking to buy potions and scrolls, or to have curses removed, magical items identified, prophesies interpreted, or their destination scried upon to scope it out. He has set it up to impress and intimate guests, with an ornate throne for himself. Most of the magical devices that he might need for the typical visitors are available here.
Second Floor
The second floor is the wizard's main living space, with a kitchen and spacious dining area. The roof of the gatehouse can be accessed from here, and the wizard has set up a table and chairs here for outdoor dining on nice afternoons and evenings.
Third Floor
This is the wizard's bedchamber, bath, and private office. The main interior stairs end here, but a spiral staircase in the western tower continues up.
Fourth Floor
This is the wizard's workshop and summoning chamber. The tower stairs continue from here to the roof.
Comments
You need a cute little path from the South tower base, to the well then to the garden.
Maybe even a bit for the path to the stocks and water trough.
Other than that it's pretty sweet.
"A path, a path".
"And a shrubbery."
"Then ye shall cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with.......A herring."
"Ni,Ni,Ni"
Added the path to the well and the hitching posts (not stocks), and made some other adjustments. Working on the basement (but I have a recent urge to design a small research vessel in Cosmographer, which I've never really played with so I might get hijacked).
It's fun having a chance to use Mike Schley's latest symbols.
That is perfect, just adds so much more realism in my opinion. Years upon years of the routine.
Rooster crows, grabs yesterdays scraps, throw them in the feed trough. Swish a pailfull from the well. Throw that into the garden.
8 trips to the water trough if it's cool day. 12 if it's hot.
3 buckets for the cabbage rows. 2 for the broccoli, 6 for potatoes 4 for carrots. 2 for the climbing vines.
Then 14 into the house for all the chores.
Awhile back when I tried my hand on a tower, I created a base file that I used to ensure that all the exterior layouts matched. I started with the top floor of the tower; for the next floor down, I slightly shrank the file size and adjusted the overall transparency to make the ground slightly clearer. Repeated this process to the ground level where the transparency was totally removed. My attempt at conveying the broadened horizon you get as you move higher in a structure.
I cant find the images anymore.....but the players complimented it at the time.
That’s a neat idea. I thought about adjusting the transparency but it didn’t occur to me to make the exterior symbols slightly larger as you go down.
Yes! Starting at the top level at each lower level you slightly increase the symbol size, while reducing the overall map size --so they see less outdoor space. I used this to add a teaser on the next game - a burning house could be seen in the distance from the top level.
Still haven't finished the basement (got sidetracked with Cosmographer), but revisiting this to add some of the newest monthly symbols. I experimented with adding tombstones #4 and #5 from Mike Schley's latest monthly as decorations on the top of the tower, like where gargoyles and grotesques would go, but I couldn't get them to look right. And creating a little graveyard outside of the tower looked weird on such a small hill. But I couldn't resist doing something with the new symbols, so I added tombstone #4 as a statue amidst the trees on the western side, and the wheelbarrow next to the vegetable garden.
I think I've managed to get something from each of the 2025 monthly dungeon-scale symbols into one or more of these Wizard of Schley maps.
Here are the dungeons -- er, basements.
Basement 1
Halfway down the spiral staircase, there's a secret door that leads to a secret passageway with stairs that descend into a hidden treasure chamber. This chamber also has a secret door that leads to a double-trapped secret tunnel that in turn leads into a secret cavern with more secret treasure.
The non-secret areas of this basement include a larder, laundry room with furnace, and stairs locked with a sturdy stone door* that descend to the sewers.
* I have discovered that Mike Schley's dungeons do not have metal doors.
Basement 2
The second basement is really just access to the municipal sewers. I love the idea of adventurers using the sewers for heists, escapes, or other shenanigans.